This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from the prior Japanese Patent Applications No. 2000-049721, filed Feb. 25, 2000; and No. 2000-305173, filed Oct. 4, 2000, the entire contents of both of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for manufacturing wallpaper by printing a design on a wallpaper sheet, and a program for causing a computer to function as a wallpaper manufacturing apparatus. It is to be noted that the wallpaper herein means not only a material attached on a wall surface of an architectural structure but also a sheet having a printed design which is attached on a floor, a ceiling, a door, a surface of a furniture or the like.
In recent years, various designs are used for interior materials of architectural structures, furniture and furnishing goods.
For example, also in case of wallpaper for an interior decoration used on a ceiling or a wall surface of an architectural structure, there are sold those having various designs or color paints applied on the surfaces thereof. As means for applying such a paint, a gravure painting system is used. Since such a gravure painting system, however, requires a photochemical graving technique, this system is not consequently suitable for manufacturing wallpaper meeting the small-lot and multi-product demand and solely satisfies the large-lot and small-product needs.
Recent demands of users are diversified, and production of wallpaper which meets the preference of each user is desired. However, such wallpaper which meets the preference of each user can not be expected to be sold to other users.
On the other hand, there has been recently developed an ink-jet printer capable of color printing on paper having a large size such as A0 size or B0 size. Therefore, in order to meet the above-described small-lot and large-product needs, use of this ink-jet printer is considered. Further, a wallpaper sheet on which designs can be printed by such an ink-jet printer has been also developed, and, for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 10-309764 discloses such a wallpaper sheet.
However, even if a wallpaper sheet such as disclosed in the above Publication and the ink-jet printer are used to try to produce wallpaper with a design desired by a user, how to fetch the design desired by a user is yet to be sufficiently examined, and the above Publication does not disclose such a method.
Moreover, in the prior art, wallpaper is partially wasted when attaching the wallpaper onto a wall surface in order to match designs. That is, a part of the wallpaper is cut and wasted for a part of a wall surface such as a door or a window on which no wallpaper is attached in order to avoid the discontinuous design.
This problem can be solved by using an ink-jet printer capable of color-printing on paper having a large size to print a desired design. In case of printing by using such a printer, however, the following problems occur.
1. When one design runs off the width range of paper, sheets of wallpaper must be printed one by one with a pattern designed based on a calculation for assuring the design continuity between adjacent sheets of wallpaper, which leads to the deteriorated efficiency.
2. Similarly, at a part where a sheet of wallpaper is adjacent to another sheet of wallpaper, attachment is carried out with an overlap portion, but sheets of wallpaper must be printed one by one by calculating the design with which the overlap is previously assured, which leads to the deteriorated efficiency.
3. The post-treatment may be difficult in some cases depending on a size or a shape of printed wallpaper.
4. It is necessary to specify which part in the entire wallpaper corresponds to the printed wallpaper at a work site.
In view of the above-described drawbacks in the prior art, it is an object of the present invention to provide a wallpaper manufacturing method and a wallpaper manufacturing apparatus which can accept from a user an order of wallpaper having a design desired by the user and easily produce small quantities and a large variety of wallpaper in accordance with that order, and to provide a program for causing a computer to function as the wallpaper manufacturing apparatus.
Further, it is another object of the present invention to provide a wallpaper manufacturing method and a wallpaper manufacturing apparatus which can support a layout work and the like of wallpaper and obtain wallpaper suitable for a surface on which the wallpaper is attached, and to provide a program for causing a computer to function as the wallpaper manufacturing apparatus.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a wallpaper manufacturing method, comprising the steps of:
storing design data of the wallpaper in a storage medium;
inputting accepting order information including amount information concerning an amount of the wallpaper and design information concerning a design of the wallpaper;
fetching design data from the storage medium based on the design information in the inputted accepting order information; and
printing, on wallpaper sheet, the design data fetched from the storage medium by a quantity led from the amount information of the wallpaper in the inputted accepting order information.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a wallpaper manufacturing method, comprising the steps of:
inputting dimension and shape information of a wall surface on which wallpaper is attached;
determining a positional relationship between the wall surface and a design by applying design data of the wallpaper on a virtual wall surface based on the inputted dimension and shape information;
determining on the virtual wall surface a shape and a position of each of a plurality of pieces of wallpaper attached on the wall surface while taking a width of the wallpaper into consideration; and
determining a design, a dimension and a shape of each of a plurality of the pieces of wallpaper from the determined positional relationship between the wall surface and the design and the determined shape and position of each of a plurality of the pieces of wallpaper.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a wallpaper manufacturing apparatus, comprising:
a storage medium for accumulating design data of wallpaper;
an input device for inputting accepting order information including amount information concerning an amount of the wallpaper and design information concerning a design of the wallpaper;
a fetch device for fetching the design data from the storage medium based on the design information in the accepting order information inputted by the input device; and
a printer for printing on a wallpaper sheet the design data fetched from the storage medium by the fetch device by a quantity led from the amount information of the wallpaper in the accepting order information inputted by the input device.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a wallpaper manufacturing apparatus, comprising:
an input device for inputting dimension and shape information of a wall surface on which wallpaper is attached;
a positional relationship determining device for determining a positional relationship between the wall surface and a design by applying design data of the wallpaper on a virtual wall surface based on the dimension and shape information inputted from the input device;
a shape and position determining device for determining on the virtual wall surface a shape and a position of each of a plurality of pieces of wallpaper attached on the wall surface while taking a width of the wallpaper into consideration; and
a wallpaper determining device for determining a design, a dimension and a shape of each of a plurality of the pieces of wallpaper from the positional relationship between the wall surface and the design determined by the positional relationship determining device and the shape and the position of each of a plurality of the pieces of wallpaper determined by the shape and position determining device.
According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a wallpaper manufacturing apparatus, comprising:
storage means for accumulating design data of wallpaper;
input means for inputting accepting order information including amount information concerning an amount of the wallpaper and design information concerning a design of the wallpaper;
fetch means for fetching the design data from the storage means based on the design information in the accepting order information inputted by the input means; and
print means for printing on a wallpaper sheet the design data fetched from the storage means by the fetch means by a quantity led from the amount information of the wallpaper in the accepting order information inputted by the input means.
According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a wallpaper manufacturing apparatus, comprising:
input means for inputting dimension and shape information of a wall surface on which wallpaper is attached;
positional relationship determining means for determining a positional relationship between the wall surface and a design by applying design data of the wallpaper on a virtual wall surface based on the dimension and shape information inputted from the input means;
shape and position determining means for determining on the virtual wall surface a shape and a position of each of a plurality of pieces of wallpaper attached on the wall surface while taking a width of the wallpaper into consideration; and
wallpaper determining means for determining a design, a dimension and a shape of each of a plurality of the pieces of wallpaper from the positional relationship between the wall surface and the design determined by the positional relationship determining means and the shape and the position of each of a plurality of the pieces of wallpaper determined by the shape and position determining means.
According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, there is provided a program for causing a computer to execute following processing, comprising:
processing for storing design data of wallpaper in a storage medium;
processing for inputting accepting order information including amount information concerning an amount of the wallpaper and design information concerning a design of the wallpaper;
processing for fetching design data from the storage medium based on the design information in the inputted accepting order information; and
processing for printing the design data fetched from the storage medium on a wallpaper sheet by a quantity led from the amount information of the wallpaper in the inputted accepting order information.
According to an eighth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a program for causing a computer to execute following processing, comprising:
processing for inputting dimension and shape information of a wall surface on which wallpaper is attached;
processing for determining positional relationship between the wall surface and a design by applying design data of the wallpaper on a virtual wall surface based on the inputted dimension and shape information;
processing for determining on the virtual wall surface a shape and a position of each of a plurality of pieces of the wallpaper attached on a wall surface while taking a width of the wallpaper into consideration; and
processing for determining a dimension and a shape of each of a plurality of pieces of the wallpaper from the determined positional relationship between the wall surface and the design and the determined shape and position of each of a plurality of the pieces of the wallpaper.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.